Stories of People On Earth:
CONCEPCION PICCIOTTO
Kyodo News, August 17, 2010
By Toru Takei
"Look, this is the holocaust!" we hear kids saying as they stand in front of the White House in Washington, DC and point their fingers to a yellow board with ten black-and-white pictures on it. Right next to it there is a small old lady whose face is nicely tanned. She tells the kids, "No, this is not the holocaust, these pictures show Hiroshima and Nagasaki after the United States dropped nuclear bombs on Japan. There are many people who are still suffering from the effects of atomic weapons."
There are many reactions. "Why did it happen?" "I don't really care." However, the kids look surprised when they realize that this woman, Concepcion Picciotto, whose nickname is Connie, started to have a vigil calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons in 1981, and she continues her protest vigil after nearly 30 years.
Connie does not reveal her age, but according to one supporter, she is 74 years old. She stands 16 hours a day in the same spot, and except for the times when she takes baths, eats, and does laundry at the house of her supporters, she can be found at the edge of the park opposite the White House with a plastic sheet and two signs with pictures.
She does this without a break 365 days a year, even if there is a muggy summer day or heavy snow storm. The reason is simple. She says, "If I stay here, I can tell people from all around the world about no nuclear weapons."
Indeed, countless tourists look at the pictures she carries and have a conversation with her. According to the Department of Interior, the number of people who visited the White House last year exceeded 1.47 million people.
Connie, originally from Spain, came to the United States in the '60's, and worked with the Spanish Embassy in New York, etc. In 1966 she married. In 1973 she adopted a daughter and became a mother, which was her dream. However, the marriage lasted only another year and eight months before they broke up. After a fight over custody, she lost her daughter.
In 1981, when she was struggling with her life, she met peace acivist William Thomas. It was during the time when the proliferation of nuclear weapons was at its greatest, under the Reagan administration. The fear of world collapse was much more realistic than now, due to the Cold War and "Mutual Assured Destruction."
Listening to Thomas, who explained to her the threat of nuclear weapons, she started to be concerned about the future of the world where her daughter would have to live. Connie thought, "If I cannot do anything as a mother with her, I would like to do something to create a world where everybody, including my daughter, would live peacefully." With this in her mind, she joined Thomas, who had started the vigil.
The vigil, as time passed by, started to get attention from people as the longest vigil in the United States. Connie has become a symbol of the peace movement. Her comrade, Thomas, passed away in January 2009, but Connie continues the vigil.
After the long years of sitting, her back is hunched and teeth have deteriorated. Drunk passersby harrass her every day, and she wears a wig over a helmet. Often tourists have a heated debate with her over politics and history. Because of her strong Spanish accent, people always look at her with curiosity.
There are supporters. For example, Colman McCarthy (72 years old) is one of them. He used to be a columnist for the Washington Post. He says, "Some people call her crazy, but I think that Connie has the most resilient spirit that I've ever seen."
For Connie, one of the most memorable events was the end of the Cold War. "I was so happy because the world would change." When Gorbachev visited the White House in the '90's, she had a sign saying "Welcome," and she waved it when the car with Gorbachev passed by. However, the moment of hope lasted only for a while. "Nothing has changed after all. The countries continue to have nuclear weapons."
Her distrust goes to President Obama as well. She recognizes the importance of him sending someone to the Hiroshima peace ceremony this year, for the first time. However, she is skeptical whether President Obama can do much to abolish nuclear weapons in the world.
She often tells children not to take politicians' words at face value, but reason with their own minds. She says to those kids, "Learn history, and think critically." Her sad smile reveals the woman whose dream was to be a mother. She shows a picture of a woman who is breast feeding a baby in Nagasaki after the city was hit by a nuclear bomb, and says, "My concern is not for me, but for you and the world where you have to live."
"I'm against nuclear weapons, I'm against war," Connie continues, and the crowd has become even larger.
***
The vigil that Connie continues near the White House, which has the heaviest police presence in the city, is a survivor of the controversy between the Department of Interior and the First Amendment, which guarantees freedom of expression.
Initially, Connie and Thomas occupied a space right next to the White House fence. They started the vigil with a picture of a big mushroom cloud, and protested against nuclear weapons. However, the Department of Interior began to hammer out a series of regulations from 1982 to 1992.
When they lay down, their activities were considered "camping" and they were arrested. The Department of Interior prohibited the vigil on the White House sidewalk, and Connie and Thomas decided to move their signs to their current spot [in Lafayette Park] in 1983. The regulation allows only a certain size of sign, and they are not supposed to move away from their possessions more than a meter.
At night Connie dozes off with her possessions. Daytimes she cannot move away from the signs. Every day she has to ask her comrades to take care of the signs when she leaves to take a rest at the house of her supporters.
Thomas was arrested more than 40 times and Connie five times, charged with violation of the regulations. Connie says, "This is a sacrifice that I have to make in order to make world peace and world justice."
Steve Leeper, Director of the Hiroshima Peace Museum, gave an official thank you note to her.
Thomas's wife, Ellen (63 years old), who herself has a history of being arrested seven times, says that it has been a struggle to protect the rights of the citizens. She joined the vigil in 1984, which she has continued to support for the last [26] years, [18 of them with her own signs in front of the White House]*. "The millions of seeds that we have planted are actually bearing fruit," she says with a smile, citing the example of a boy who witnessed the vigil and years later became a member of the group calling for no nuclear weapons.
-- Translated by Satoko Okamoto
* minor corrections to original [in brackets] by Ellen Thomas.